Tourettes

At night it's the silence that wakes me up when he finally sleeps.

S V Tenacious

It was waiting for the old chain ferry to Swanage that I first saw the tall ship Tenacious as she slid elegantly into Poole Harbour in southern England.  I was spellbound and decided right then to one day sail with her.  We had a day sail out of Southampton, the young chap and I, which he loved as much as me.  But two months later a phone call came on a gloomy November day asking for someone to make up the balance between able bodied and disabled voyage crew, I dropped everything, cancelled work, and three days later was in Palma de Mallorca for a ten day sail in the Med.

We weathered two gales - the Mediterranean is not always the azure mirror of the holiday brochures - and took our turns on watch, steering the ship under astonishing pageants of stars and planets or through sudden squalls that whipped in from nowhere and lashed our cheeks with pellet raindrops. We climbed the rigging and inched out onto the yards to release or furl the sails, at first with clenched white knuckles clinging onto the jackstays, but later relaxed and laughing. 

We 'learnt the ropes' and hauled on them in gangs of five or more to turn the sails or set or furl them, and did mess duty which was sometimes more arduous; serving and washing up for forty people on a heaving deck is no picnic. During the daily 'happy hour' the whole voyage crew turned out to clean the ship, from the saltwater heads to the scrubbed teak decks.

At Barcelona we toured Las Ramblas with its vibrant food market, a cheerful train of wheelchairs and 'buddies' clogging up restaurants and bars that in lean times were all too happy to have twenty customers descend on them at once. In the harbour we helped hoist the disabled crew, wheelchairs and all up into the rigging and onto the fore top and watched in awe as two of them lifted themselves out of their chairs and with a crew member in attendance and a safety rope, inched their way up the rigging as far as the lower topsail.  

In ten days we just began to learn the complexities of sailing a square rigger, but melded into a motley loyal crew of friends.

Here are a few lo-rez photos of the trip. They are available from www.rexfeatures.com in a more useable size.

Tall Ships.

In November I spent 10 days helping to crew a square rigger, the sail training ship SV Tenacious, which included a certain amount of scrambling about in the rigging.  I just found this picture on Wikipedia which reminds me what a fun way it is to spend a holiday.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Garthsnaid_(ship,_1892)

Owls

The Christmas tradition that is as uncelebrated as brussel sprouts is the start of the twooing season for Tawny Owls, or so it seems. Emerging scullery bound at 3am with a roll of wet bedding into a brilliant cold night, I heard one start up loud and indignant a few feet away. It was disinclined to leave or to quit its noise until I re-emerged from the scullery doorway and tried to spot it in the brilliance of Jupiter's light. It must have been on a branch of the ash tree above my head, or possibly on the roof of the woodshed, but as quickly as it had started, it's call moved to a tree farther away, and then presently it was gone, as if the call had come without a bird, like the smile on a Cheshire cat.

Tourettes's syndrome

He finally went to sleep in the early hours, kept awake by the tics and shouts of this monster that has taken over him called Tourette's.  He's gone back to sleep on the sofa, a shaft of early sunshine across his blanket; at least for the moment his face is at peace.

Todays Lunch - 240Cals

My lunch - 30g chorizo fried without oil, 140g scallops fried in the chorizo fat and sprinkled with fresh coriander. A mere 240 Cals, carb free, and utterly delicious. Total cooking time six minutes. Thanks to Nigella.

Times Photographers Reunion

Home on the late train from Andrew Moger's well provisioned reunion for old Times of London photographers at the Frontline Club. Only two turned up who overlapped my days at Gray's Inn Road, but that was quite enough to unlock the memories of operating newspapers without mobile phones or the internet.